New Human Lunar Expedition Company announced

Golden Spike wants to start human lunar expeditions within a decade.

Space exploration aficionados, already a bit worn after all the activity this year, have just been delivered another piece of news. The mysterious Golden Spike Company went public today with the announcement of plans to offer human expeditions to the Moon's surface.

What we learned about Golden Spike

There were no vehicles announced, no disclosure of customers or investors, no mission plans or detailed slideshows. The prices quoted, while a bargain compared to what's currently being spent on space exploration, were still impossible for anyone except nations and the richest individuals to afford. The new company itself would not be credible if not for the list of companies and luminaries involved, which is lengthy.

The new Golden Spike Company is formed of serious and experienced individuals, most of them historically successful in spaceflight. They have done extensive technical and market studies to prove that it is feasible to offer lunar expeditions to exceptionally well-off individuals and medium-sized countries that are interested in contracting for a space program that is far more capable than it otherwise would be on a mid-sized country's budget.

Who's involved

The organizations involved in some capacity include, not in any particular order:

Space Florida, the State of Florida's special spaceport district
Zero Point Frontiers, an aerospace consulting company
Armadillo Aerospace, a reusable launch vehicle company
Masten Space Systems, a reusable launch vehicle company
The Southwest Research Institute, a non-profit engineering and sciences company
United Launch Alliance, a launch company
Moon Express, a lunar exploration company
Northrop Grumman, an aerospace company
International Lunar Observatory Association, a non-profit lunar exploration organization
Paragon Space Development, an aerospace company

Other agreements are being crafted with additional companies, so this list is not all-inclusive. SpaceX is notably absent from the list, but the SpaceX Falcon Heavy was mentioned in a Golden Spike Company paper available on the company's website.

Where the company originated

As narrated by Golden Spike Chairman Gerry Griffin, a more or less secret meeting took place in 2010 took place in Telluride, Colorado to determine whether it was feasible to offer commercial human expeditions to the Moon. Present at that meeting were Wayne Hale, Jeff Ashby, Dr. Bill McKinnon, Peter Banks, and Astrid Dyson. A study shown to the attendees indicated that commercial human expeditions were, indeed, technically feasible, and that customers around the world would buy seats and products from such a company. A decision was made to form such a company.

The new entity, Golden Spike Company, was registered last year to Alan Stern in the state of Colorado. Alan Stern is currently also the chief scientist at Moon Express, a company competing for the Google Lunar X Prize. He resigned as Associate Administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate a few years ago, citing his disagreement with numerous cost overruns on politically-protected projects at the agency, and he has been involved in many public and private space projects. Stern became Golden Spike's CEO.

Why today?

Today is the anniversary of the launch of Apollo 17, the last manned mission to the Moon. The Golden Spike folks are heavily into symbolism, which is probably why they waited until today to make their announcement.

"Golden Spike" refers to the completion of the first transcontinental railroad across the United States at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory on May 10, 1869. (Lest anyone make a gold rush for Promontory, it should be known that the Golden Spike was almost immediately withdrawn and placed in the Stanford Museum in Stanford, California.)

As a metaphor, the Golden Spike came to symbolize a new era in transportation. For the first time, people could ride quickly by rail all the way across the United States, and so could freight. More transcontinental railroads were built as the land between the west and east coasts grew in population. The presence of the railroad served as the enabler for a plethora of commercial and private development. The Golden Spike Company has based their sales pitch on that metaphor.

Can it work?

All of the pieces of a non-government lunar transportation system have been in place for a while now, and two other companies—Space Adventures and Excalibur Almaz—have already announced their own vacations to lunar orbit. As Alan Stern pointed out today, all that was really lacking was a lander and spacesuits. Although Stern did not reveal much, he did say that contracts have been issued for both of those items. Paragon, Masten, Moon Express, and Armadillo Aerospace have all worked on space suits or vertical launch systems at least partially suitable for manned lunar landers.

In closing, Alan Stern made two important points. One was that a medium-sized robotic expedition costs about $1.5B, and that's what Golden Spike feels is a feasible cost for an expedition that would allow them a healthy profit. He also stated that the "long pole in the tent" is really the marketing and sales aspect, because "that's the rate-limiting step for the engineers."

In other words, Golden Spike needs customers, and that's nothing new at all.

A lottery jackpot of $587M is part of the zeitgeist, but for some reason we tend to think that a $750M trip to the moon is a thoroughly ludicrous idea. Money, the worthless exchange medium with which we measure the relative value of everything else, has become the thing which our society values most. And so we have amassed tremendous potential, but with not much to show for it. At least that nice couple in Missouri no longer has to comparison shop for toothpaste.

Oh man I can't wait for that day to come. I just rush out to a local dollar store and got myself a plastic bucket and from today on I'll drop a quarter-a-day in the bucket and hopefully one day it'll save me up enough money for the space trip.

My mom had once said to me if I sprinkle a few drop of water into the bucket once a day those quarters will grow into millions.

A rat done bit my sister Nell.(with Whitey on the moon)Her face and arms began to swell.(and Whitey's on the moon)I can't pay no doctor bill.(but Whitey's on the moon)Ten years from now I'll be paying still.(while Whitey's on the moon)The man just upped my rent last night.('cause Whitey's on the moon)No hot water, no toilets, no lights.(but Whitey's on the moon)I wonder why he's upping me?('cause Whitey's on the moon?)I wuz already paying him fifty a week.(with Whitey on the moon)Taxes taking my whole damn check,Junkies making me a nervous wreck,The price of food is going up,An' as if all that shit was't enough:A rat done bit my sister Nell.(with Whitey on the moon)Her face and arm began to swell.(but Whitey's on the moon)Was all that money I made last year(for Whitey on the moon?)How come there ain't no money here?(Hmm! Whitey's on the moon)Y'know I just about had my fill(of Whitey on the moon)I think I'll send these doctor bills,Airmail special(to Whitey on the moon)

I really hope for the best for them. While I think I'm too old to ever have a chance to do this, it's only going to happen if it starts like this. Tourism for the rich. Prices will fall as competitors enter the market and we develop better methods and technologies... next thing you know, it'll be readily available.

I'd love to know my daughter could (realistically) have that opportunity one day.

I really hope for the best for them. While I think I'm too old to ever have a chance to do this, it's only going to happen if it starts like this. Tourism for the rich. Prices will fall as competitors enter the market and we develop better methods and technologies... next thing you know, it'll be readily available.

I'd love to know my daughter could (realistically) have that opportunity one day.

There are 400 people with more than $3B, see World's Billionaires. And assuming that a someone is willing to spend half of their wealth that they took years to amass; this leads to 400 customers. I do not see this as enough push for that much more competitors or better technologies - the rate of improvement of technology is proportional to the number of iterations that a product can go through, which is proportional to the number of customers.

Of course something might happen by chance alone that will drop the price to $0.5B, in which case there are 1226 potential customers ...

I was looking at the 1869 post-Civil War date for the completion of the transcontinental railroad and realized that most Western expansion occurred via Conestoga wagon trains long after that. I wonder how much a ticket from New York to San Francisco cost in those days and how much a baggage car full of freight would've cost in addition?

it used to be said that whatever mans mind can conceive, mans mind can achieve. That should now be amended to whatever man's mind can conceive can probably happen (if we can just find the financing)

The tone of the article reminded me a great deal of some of Robert Heinlein's works. At my age I'll never see it happen let alone be able to make the trip myself, but I wish them Godspeed, and I'll probably buy a couple shares of the company when it goes public.

I really hope for the best for them. While I think I'm too old to ever have a chance to do this, it's only going to happen if it starts like this. Tourism for the rich. Prices will fall as competitors enter the market and we develop better methods and technologies... next thing you know, it'll be readily available.

I'd love to know my daughter could (realistically) have that opportunity one day.

There are 400 people with more than $3B, see World's Billionaires. And assuming that a someone is willing to spend half of their wealth that they took years to amass; this leads to 400 customers. I do not see this as enough push for that much more competitors or better technologies - the rate of improvement of technology is proportional to the number of iterations that a product can go through, which is proportional to the number of customers.

Of course something might happen by chance alone that will drop the price to $0.5B, in which case there are 1226 potential customers ...

Seems like enough to me. I mean realistically you're not going to get more than 50 takers at $1.5 billion, but with the right systems costs could drop rapidly and 50 iterations is a LOT, far more than any space system except maybe Soyuz. You could start caching fuel at a Lunar orbital depot for instance and reuse the same lander and transit craft again and again. For instance launch people using a dragon capsule or similar, leave that in orbit, transit to an Earth/Moon 'bus', fuel it up from an orbital depot, transit to Lunar orbit, refuel the orbiting lander, go down, come up, return the bus to Earth orbit, get back in your capsule, land. Heck, use a Soyuz for that, lol. All supplies can be pre-cached with cheaper unmanned rockets, etc. Safer, cheaper, more reliable, IF you're going to do it again and again.

Then you can start knocking the cost down. I don't see why in the long run you can't cut them by 90%. The real question is just whether you can cut them faster than the really valuable "gotta have a man on site" stuff and high end space tourism gets tapped out. I have a sneaky suspicion with all of this stuff that there always comes a point where you could only get it cheaper with a HUGE investment and it never gets cheap enough for Joe Shmoe. Eventually there are only so many rock-picking missions that require humans before the science devolves down to smaller questions that, if they are worth the cost to answer at all, can be answered with highly capable automated tele-operated systems.

Given the HUGE difference in habitability between Earth and everywhere else it is always hard to see the long-term justification for living anywhere else. There are bound to be thrill-seekers that will fly to the Moon. They'd go to Mars etc too if they had the money, but I find it hard to believe they'll stay up there. I find it hard to believe Mars can ever be that cheap to start with.

I wonder if this will help deplete the trust funds of the incredibly wealthy... or maybe it will encourage some to rip off even more people to raise the money they need for their ticket to the moon.

I think it is a foreshadowing of the long-term future. We're transitioning from a public/private model of society in which the liberal ideal of a public sector held in common by and for all of society will break down and be replaced by a sort of paternal system of plutarchs and their personal fiefdoms of interest and industry surrounded by a mass of dependents who fulfill their directives, all surrounded by the mass of have-nots who live on a dole which is all that will remain of the once vital public sector.

This is just the very first inkling of that, the edge case where the super rich plutocrats build themselves a little fantasy space program to play with. It will supply an industry that will put food in the mouths of a few 100,000 people. Over time the pickings will get leaner as the costs get squeezed out, like with anything.

Huge science projects like fusion reactors and particle accelerators will probably follow a similar path, as will eventually more socially vital things like transport and logistics networks, etc.

What are the legal aspects of building on the moon? Who "owns" it, who can mine it for helium 3, how do we share that profit and innovation with the world?

One large step to mine the moon, but it would be a humungus leap if that profit were shared to better mankind or its scientific understanding.

No government is allowed to own anything on the moon, which effectively means that the moon is to 100% open to wild-west style corporate ownership grabs.

Governments can't make territorial claims, so they cannot exercise sovereignty, that is different from owning property. Individuals could own things, and so could governments, but in a practical sense ownership is a matter of force and possession. If you build something, you own it. If you put it somewhere who's to tell you you can't?

As for natural resources, that's the real question. Frankly I find it unlikely that if someone produces something from resources in space that they'll be forbidden from getting the benefits of doing so. There will be some sort of tax, that's all. Who'd have thunk it, taxes in space!

I really hope for the best for them. While I think I'm too old to ever have a chance to do this, it's only going to happen if it starts like this. Tourism for the rich. Prices will fall as competitors enter the market and we develop better methods and technologies... next thing you know, it'll be readily available.

I'd love to know my daughter could (realistically) have that opportunity one day.

There are 400 people with more than $3B, see World's Billionaires. And assuming that a someone is willing to spend half of their wealth that they took years to amass; this leads to 400 customers. I do not see this as enough push for that much more competitors or better technologies - the rate of improvement of technology is proportional to the number of iterations that a product can go through, which is proportional to the number of customers.

Of course something might happen by chance alone that will drop the price to $0.5B, in which case there are 1226 potential customers ...

Don't forget governments and their sponsored research entities. Maybe for a "mere" $250 million, they will plop your 50kg payload on the Moon and bring it back one or two trips later. If your payload is a rover, you're responsible for getting it back to the landing site.

What are the legal aspects of building on the moon? Who "owns" it, who can mine it for helium 3, how do we share that profit and innovation with the world?

One large step to mine the moon, but it would be a humungus leap if that profit were shared to better mankind or its scientific understanding.

No government is allowed to own anything on the moon, which effectively means that the moon is to 100% open to wild-west style corporate ownership grabs.

Governments can't make territorial claims, so they cannot exercise sovereignty, that is different from owning property. Individuals could own things, and so could governments, but in a practical sense ownership is a matter of force and possession. If you build something, you own it. If you put it somewhere who's to tell you you can't?

As for natural resources, that's the real question. Frankly I find it unlikely that if someone produces something from resources in space that they'll be forbidden from getting the benefits of doing so. There will be some sort of tax, that's all. Who'd have thunk it, taxes in space!

You are correct in that few contest the US's ownership of the flag and various bits of litter they left on the Moon (or that Russia owns the Soviet bits). Now when it comes to raking huge swaths of territory (lunatory?) for He3, there will be hell to pay if any company changes the visual appearance of the Moon as seen from Earth.

I was looking at the 1869 post-Civil War date for the completion of the transcontinental railroad and realized that most Western expansion occurred via Conestoga wagon trains long after that. I wonder how much a ticket from New York to San Francisco cost in those days and how much a baggage car full of freight would've cost in addition?

it used to be said that whatever mans mind can conceive, mans mind can achieve. That should now be amended to whatever man's mind can conceive can probably happen (if we can just find the financing)

The tone of the article reminded me a great deal of some of Robert Heinlein's works. At my age I'll never see it happen let alone be able to make the trip myself, but I wish them Godspeed, and I'll probably buy a couple shares of the company when it goes public.

Quick Google search for train ticket cost New York to San Francisco 1869

Looking at around Transcontinental (New York to San Francisco) ticket rates as of June 1870: $136 for first class in a Pullman sleeping car; $110 for second class; $65 for third or "emigrant" class seats on a bench.1

What are the legal aspects of building on the moon? Who "owns" it, who can mine it for helium 3, how do we share that profit and innovation with the world?

One large step to mine the moon, but it would be a humungus leap if that profit were shared to better mankind or its scientific understanding.

No government is allowed to own anything on the moon, which effectively means that the moon is to 100% open to wild-west style corporate ownership grabs.

Governments can't make territorial claims, so they cannot exercise sovereignty, that is different from owning property. Individuals could own things, and so could governments, but in a practical sense ownership is a matter of force and possession. If you build something, you own it. If you put it somewhere who's to tell you you can't?

As for natural resources, that's the real question. Frankly I find it unlikely that if someone produces something from resources in space that they'll be forbidden from getting the benefits of doing so. There will be some sort of tax, that's all. Who'd have thunk it, taxes in space!

My guess is that squatter's rights will factor heavily into the equation. "I'm on the moon and you're not" is a pretty heavy factor in deciding who "owns" things there. For now, there are enormous amounts of unclaimed territory, so it's easy to avoid someone else's plot of land.

If it ever becomes populated enought to be necessary, I imagine a government might form there among the people who actually live there, at which point de facto property rights become de jure property rights.

I was looking at the 1869 post-Civil War date for the completion of the transcontinental railroad and realized that most Western expansion occurred via Conestoga wagon trains long after that. I wonder how much a ticket from New York to San Francisco cost in those days and how much a baggage car full of freight would've cost in addition?

it used to be said that whatever mans mind can conceive, mans mind can achieve. That should now be amended to whatever man's mind can conceive can probably happen (if we can just find the financing)

The tone of the article reminded me a great deal of some of Robert Heinlein's works. At my age I'll never see it happen let alone be able to make the trip myself, but I wish them Godspeed, and I'll probably buy a couple shares of the company when it goes public.

Quick Google search for train ticket cost New York to San Francisco 1869

Looking at around Transcontinental (New York to San Francisco) ticket rates as of June 1870: $136 for first class in a Pullman sleeping car; $110 for second class; $65 for third or "emigrant" class seats on a bench.1

So it's much easier to make 2 grand today than the $110 back in those days. If the info is correct that $65 better came with a soft cushion or you'll hear complaints from your rear-end because it took 7 days and 7 nights from SFO to NYC on train and 7 days 7 nights sitting on those hardwood benches with nothing underneath your butts weren't no fun.

I hope 1 billion dollar would still buy you a loaf bread in 18 years from now.